Beneath The Skin
by Clementive
Summary: Modern!AU. After his execution, they revived him, gave him another face and a new identity. Even with everything different, he couldn't stay away from the only thing that hadn't changed: Sakura Haruno. SasuSaku


_**This is a Dark!AU, mainly in Sasuke's POV because I couldn't resist. You will not find fluff here, I just thought I would let you know beforehand. I was inspired by Frankenstein and the Beauty and the Beast, so you will find elements of both stories in here. Anyway, enjoy! :D**_

_**Pairings: NaruSakuSasu (ending pair is SasuSaku), SuiKarin (minor), maybe others.**_

_**Disclaimer: **_**I do not own Naruto.**

-X-

_Once upon a time, a devil had glasses, syringes and scalpels. When he made the beast, he still wasn't used to the weight of his tools. He had no choice but to leave the heart out._

-X-

Uchiha Sasuke ceased to live the moment they sentenced him to death.

It was all formality, when the jury didn't meet his eye. Their disgruntled sighs were part of their indignant act even if this was the same; an eye for an eye. A cadaver for a cadaver. He could feel the shift in the room and the thrill of the unknown was already clinging to him, licking his sides in uncontrolled jolts of fear. He didn't flinch, the mallet's vibrating around him, distant and teasing, the click of the handcuffs seizing him, stinging and hurried. His name would be released once he was dead, Sasuke knew. They never informed the family until after the body was cold. In his case, there was no one left to inform.

He had killed the last of his kin.

It was still formality when they ask him about his last meal the morning of his execution. When they make him stand over the trap, later. The same. He was already dead and the cord didn't hug his neck yet. One drop, a broken neck. Formality.

"Do you have any last words?"

"No," his voice felt rusty and the hangman looked away.

Sasuke closed his eyes, the black hood falling on his face.

He didn't want to die. He trembled. The trap opened. He fell.

-X-

_"How would you feel, Sasuke-kun, about being my first immortal protégé? How would you feel about Uchiha Sasuke dying and you living? Tell me, Sasuke-kun, would it be so bad if you weren't an Uchiha anymore?"_

_He didn't even hesitate._

_"How much?"_

_"I will take everything you have left. Death isn't a cheap traffic, Sasuke-kun, you understand that, now don't you?"_

_Maybe, Sasuke mused, he ceased to live when he shook hands with the devil, his blank expression reflected in his glasses; a halo, one last glimpse at light. Maybe, living and death by hanging withheld the same kind of formality._

_When he fell in the trap, when darkness closed in growling, he kept breathing through the tube in his neck. He kept living. His body didn't kick, swinging almost peaceful. Uchiha Sasuke was dead._

_Yakushi Kabuto was to take care of the rest._

-X-

**Eyes**  
><em><strong>by Clementive<strong>_

-X-

Yakushi Kabuto never took care of the souls. He only touched and carved the bodies until they were unrecognizable. The others had died on the table, his hand still in their smoking carcass. Uchiha Sasuke was different. He desperately clung to life. His skin coming off easily under the wavering light and his bones were replaced just as easily when he sawed them.

He gave him the build of a monster.

Life had always been a game for him, a war against destruction, rotten cadavers and reeking souls. It was a war he knew he could win with proper soldiers. Soldiers like Uchiha Sasuke. He let his hand wander on the pale skin of the new body, humming to himself as he began to cut the bandages around the hands. The Uchiha elegant slim fingers were gone. Kabuto pushed up his glasses, moving around the larger and stronger body. Above his head, the artificial lights flickered, the silence of the disinfected factory broken as he kept cutting, exposing the skin underneath the bandages.

Scissors clicked, moist gauzes rolling off the body.

When he had offered Sasuke life in another body, he had thought his task would end at tearing the flesh apart. However, once he had exposed the viscera under the flickering lights, he had pondered about how much hatred and revenge he could truly peel off the Uchiha's skin. His features were in a perpetual war against the world.

It wasn't just hatred and revenge, it was the agony of loneliness.

Kabuto had wondered if Sasuke would keep living once he opened his eyes and saw how much of him was left. The repeated surgeries could cover the tattoo and the scar on his neck where the tube had been, but his scalpels could never fill the emptiness he had sensed in his eyes. They had already shaken hands when he had realized that the man sitting across from him had killed the wrong man. He had almost growled and given up. Sasuke wanted Uchiha Sasuke to die more than the jury and more than the inmates who would elbow him in the stomach whenever they could.

Kabuto clenched his jaw, unrolling the bandages around the face. He stepped back, cocking his head on the side, searching for a detail he may have forgotten. The detail that would give away how he had cheated death. Satisfied, he reached for the syringe behind him, the metallic chime filling the improvised surgical room. Sliding on the skin of his arm, the needle found a vein.

Tensely, the body shifted, the lids fluttering opened and Kabuto licked his lips, waiting, prowling. He would be the first but not the last to survive the operation. His death traffic would begin with him, he vowed. The Akatsuki would pay double to have their members resurrected once they saw what he made of Sasuke. Once they saw what he could make of cadavers.

"How was the other side?" Kabuto joked, leaning forward on the table where he lay.

Sasuke's eyebrows creased, his dark eyes still unfocused. The metallic furniture danced around him, partly swallowed by the dimmed lights. Plastic had been thrown hastily over what had been unnecessary for the procedures. Kabuto's mouth was misshaped, moving in slow motion over words he couldn't grasp. He blinked, the room grounded on the pain of his limbs, throbbing in his joints.

"Sasuke-kun?" Kabuto chuckled, his amusement blatant as he reached for the mirror. "Do you want to see how much of you is left?"

Sasuke looked away feeling it beneath his skin, the muscles worked, stretched in an unfamiliar way. His mouth felt smaller, stiffened by the scalpel that had cut around its curve. Without seeing his face, he knew the only things left of Uchiha Sasuke were his eyes, distant, cold and glowing in the darkness.

He grunted and tried to move. He felt the foreign weight of his legs, the ache in his lower back, and he knew he wouldn't be able to walk for a while. Kabuto kept talking, the words buzzing around him as he helped him up in a sitting position. Sasuke caught a glimpse of his shortened fingers. Workers' hands. Soldiers' hands. He tried to move them one by one, taming the ripples of the muscles beneath the skin.

He grunted again.

"Ah yes, I forgot about your voice," the amused gleam in his eyes didn't match his tone.

Sasuke clenched his jaw, awkwardly it snapped and he brushed with his fingers the bolder muscles, ungracious bones. His movements were slow, deliberate and he panted, the pain still laced with every part of his body.

"Now, don't get too excited, Sasuke-kun. You don't mind, yes? I decided to keep your first name. It's quite common, so I thought, why not? Taka Sasuke," he rolled the name on his tongue, smirking. "How does it sound?"

Sasuke only stared in response as Kabuto paused, faking a musing expression. It mismatched his amusement at his pain, his own excitement at his resurrection. His eyes seemed bigger behind his glasses, drinking in his now regular features.

"I'm afraid you will have to relearn your date of birth, though."

Roughly, he turned letting go of his arm and Sasuke hissed between his teeth. He had to stabilize himself on the metallic table not to fall back onto it. His shoulders jerked forward, unused to his weight. Neatly, Kabuto lay the fake documents on a nearby table. He tried to used his voice again, but only another grunt escaped his chest. The pain thickened, running up his neck until he gave in, brutally falling back onto the table.

His vision swam, Kabuto smirking coldly above him.

"The only downside of your situation is that there's barely a few thousand yen left from your inheritance, but I warned you: I was to take everything. You should be thankful I had been this generous," he moved and the reflected light in his glasses blinded him for a moment. "I'm afraid Sasuke-kun will have to work for the first time of his life. A high school diploma was all I could do. We wouldn't want you to attract too much attention, now would we?"

His throat was scorched, swollen and he brought his hand to his neck this time, not recognizing the thickness of it or the prominence of the Adam apple. Inwardly, he repeated his new name, willing it to sink in his bones, slide across his skin so it would shake the emptiness sitting on his stomach and the sweat gathered above his brows.

"I rented you a room in an apartment on the East side of town. You will find all the information you need in the folder."

Kabuto rolled the table nearer to him. It brushed his knee and he finally looked at the evidence of Uchiha Sasuke's death. He could only crane his neck for a short while, a hiss forming between his lips.

"You have only one chance, Sasuke-kun."

Heavily, his hand fell on the documents. He wasn't an Uchiha anymore. He could never again claim his parents' tomb as his to avenge or pretend to fit among the ghosts rummaging the Uchiha manor for the ruins of their glory. Somehow, he felt relieved, empty, dead even.

Ghosts couldn't claim him anymore.

"Try not to mess it up. Death doesn't like to be cheated."

-X-

_The other inmates joked that Sasuke would see light before dying. He didn't. His heartbeat hammered his skull and he saw only darkness through the bag on his head. He thought he was floating, but he may have been drowning. _

_He didn't care. _

_He killed his brother. He killed the wrong man._

_He never searched for the light. _

-X-

After a month, his hand still quivered when Sasuke shaved, unused to his strong jaw and his erased cheekbones. Whenever he cut himself, Hozuki Suigetsu would bare his small teeth snickering, mocking him. Sasuke gripped the small sink, cold anger dancing in his eyes. His hand had slipped under his cheekbone. He threw the razor out of reach, setting his jaw.

The price to his life had been higher than he had thought.

Once, he had been Uchiha Sasuke, he forced himself to remember. No one mocked him, then. They praised him, excused him over his parents' tomb and fame. They searched for his approval, stroking his ego. Uchiha Sasuke was someone no one would have dared to dismiss. Now, he was a janitor working nights living in a filthy apartment in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Tokyo.

"Are yah done, princess?" Suigetsu slurred, pounding on the door of the bathroom.

His temper flared again and he reached for the towel on the side of the sink avoiding his reflection in the mirror. Through the door, he could hear the girl's giggle. They used to giggle louder for him.

"Don't call me that, dobe," he answered coldly, tossing his work shirt over his head.

"Or what?" he taunted, punctuating his question with three small knocks.

Sasuke could picture his roommate leaning back against the frame of the door, the girl of the night snuggling his side. He flexed the muscles of his neck. Kabuto may have enjoyed giving him regular unattractive features, he had also given him a stronger build. He imagined punching Suigetsu and he smirked, blood rushing in his body. He pressed the towel to the thin cut, his gaze finding his hardening eyes in the mirror.

Roughly, Sasuke opened the door glaring coldly at his roommate as he tumbled backwards, his purple eyes narrowing.

"Or I will punch the shit out of you."

Suigetsu shrugged smirking as he pushed the girl into the bathroom. Sasuke's blood turned cold and he nearly lost his composure.

"You speak like a fucking princess, Taka. Take that silver spoon outta your mouth and speak proper. Or I'll cut you. Understood?"

He leaned forward, his body even though smaller mirroring a life in the most dangerous alleys of Tokyo. It was something Sasuke still couldn't fake. Suigetsu mocked a bow, satisfied by the blank expression Sasuke was giving him and slammed the door behind him.

Clenching his fists, he spun on his heels heading for the kitchen. His speech pattern kept giving him away. It kept whispering to his roommate that he didn't mean his threats. His voice was different but the words were the same; used to expensive suits and manors. As blunt and hurtful they could be, they were still articulate, still subtle with the violence he could barely contain. And so, they clashed, detonated in the small apartment whenever Suigetsu's friends came over.

They called him the fallen princess.

He didn't fit with the slurs stinking of alcohol or the way they held their bodies between the dirty walls and greasy windows; like it was a temple. Often, Sasuke would sit back in the darkness where he could hide how much he struggled to understand the thickness of their dialect and the intonation of the words their tongue barely rolled. They thought they were safe in their temple of dirt, their bodies hunched over lines of white powder. Sasuke merely thought rats lived better.

They were worlds apart and the distance kept Uchiha Sasuke alive. Taka Sasuke still refused to bridge those worlds.

Away from the jury, his hometown and Uchiha ghosts, he still hoped he could exist.

Glancing over at the clock, Sasuke poured himself a cup of steaming tea. As he drank, his eyes searched the pages of today's newspaper carelessly thrown across the table. He cursed fumbling through the ink and plates for his keys. Suigetsu liked to live like a pig.

He fought the memory of instant ramen rising in him. The kitchen smelled of moulded noodles and it was too familiar. Almost like home. He shook his head, slamming his half empty cup on the table before strolling towards the door. They were all idiots and he didn't need to remember them. Any of them.

As he stepped into the small dark hallway, he thought of rats again. He had become one of them without belonging. Without existing.

-X-

Taka Sasuke now lived the night, the breath of the night reeking, sliding, sticky, against his neck when he walked down the streets toward the hospital. He passed alleys that gleamed with feverish eyes, neon lights following him as he walked up the crooked avenue. He shoved his hands in his pockets, a disgust frown setting him apart from the laughter and cries of the ones that existed and died during the night. The poor. The rats.

Moments later, he crossed the hospital's hall and wondered if he really lived with the antiseptic scent embedded in the creases of his hands. Cleaning products had wrinkled them over the weeks, drying his shortened nails. The monotonous movements of the mop would juggle the keys at his hip until he stopped, frustrated by the only sound of his existence.

It had become a routine.

Sasuke stood between life and death listening to bodies giving up, nurses hurrying past him without seeing him. Part of him wanted to be seen and found. He gave up everything for a mop and a fake name he still struggled to give with a straight face. The relief he had once felt at Uchiha Sasuke's death washed off his skin whenever he emerged alive to put his hands in a bucket of brown water.

He was nothing, no one.

Sasuke cleaned floors, dusted desks. Even inside him, everything he had once been was fading, cleansed and erased by the night shifts and glances slicing through him. There were layers of memories he couldn't shrug; girls and women fighting to be in his arms. Friends. Him.

He had felt hatred most of his life, but he had been loved.

Angrily, he shoved the mop in the bucket, the water splashing onto the floor in shapeless stains.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Sasuke instantly froze, his short fingers gripping the mop harder than they needed to. Her soft voice stung his memories and for the briefest moment, he was Uchiha Sasuke again. He was back in the court room and she was there, frozen, an annoying saint statue. He had wished to crush her then, when she had spoken. He remembered her voice breaking, her eyes pleading him for forgiveness. Reluctantly, he broke the tension in his shoulders, heavily turning around to face her.

She would see him. She had to after all those years seeking him out.

"Could you please tell me where the administration is? I just got transferred from Osaka and I got lost..." She trailed off, a faint blush over her pale cheeks.

The small diamonds at her ears shimmered when she pushed back her short locks. He blinked, petrified, feeling like a rat caught in his own trap. Her green eyes lingered on the sheets of the paper, she was clutching against her chest. Then, she glanced over at him. Nothing. He waited. There was no recognition, no blush that would have snaked up her neck.

Inwardly, he called her annoying.

Inwardly, he was pleading her to find him and gave him back what he had lost in death.

Her eyes fell on his name tag and the curve of her smile didn't break. Her eyes didn't fill with tears. Sasuke had the urge to reach forward and shake her until she broke. Politely, she waited and he wanted to slap his existence on her face.

How dared she, her of all people, let Uchiha Sasuke die?

How dared she not bring him back to life with widened green eyes and tears?

"Taka-san?"

"9th floor on your right," he replied coldly, turning away from her.

"Thank you, Taka-san."

She bowed, grateful, without calling on his rude behaviour. Maybe Uchiha Sasuke wasn't the only one who had died, he thought for the briefest second, his bitterness uncomfortable in his chest. He remembered her ferocious and pathetic. There was something missing in the way she held herself. Too confident, not pathetic enough, not broken enough. His gut clutched, ablaze by his anger.

"Hn."

Dead men didn't have voices, he now knew.

"I'm Dr. Haruno Sakura," she held up her hand, her clear eyes frank but puffed by sleepless nights. "I should have introduced myself soon, I'm sorry."

He didn't tell her she didn't need to.

As he took her small hand in his, a feral look ran wild across his face. She could still resurrect Uchiha Sasuke, he thought.

It was the only way he could search for the light. She would find him beneath his skin and he would break her.

It was time to revive Uchiha Sasuke and she would help whether she liked it or not. After all, it was her fault if he had died.

-X-

_Once upon a time, a devil turned a prince into a beast and he failed._

_It did not end well for either of them. _

-X-

_**For those who have never read one of my stories this is how I proceed: This is a pilot, I will continue this depending on the amount of feedback I receive. **_

_**So... any thoughts? :)**_


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